We decided to include the
Spirograph on this site because it played a prominent role in
our childhood. The Spirograph toy was developed in 1965and sold
in the USA by Kenner in 1966, but the idea was first hatched by
a mathematician named Bruno Abakanowicz in the late 19th
century. By the early 20th century, Sears was
selling a gear driven set called the Marvelous Wondergraph. The
Spirograph proved to be so popular, that it continued to be
produced and sold well into the 1970ís, 1980ís, and well beyond.

Essentially, the Spirograph was a
set of different sized plastic rings, with gear teeth on the
outside and inside rings, which had holes in them for pens. You
would stick a pen through the holes of the inner ring, and then
rotate around the gears of the larger ring, effectively making
hypotrochoid and epitrochoid shapes. If you were like us, your
Spiroprah went back in the box when the pens ran out of ink, and
you did not open it up again until you had kids of your own.